Dubai: Ahmad Al Kamali, president of the UAE Athletics Federation (UAE AF), believes the UAE is in a much better position to push for the hosting of a IAAF-BTC World Relay following his re-election to the world governing body for athletics.

Al Kamali polled a record 156 votes to join the likes of former athletes Frankie Fredericks, Isaiah Kiplagat and Nawal El Moutawakel in the elite IAAF Council for the next four years. The IAAF Council consists of 27 elected members, including the new President Sebastian Coe, four Vice Presidents, one treasurer, one representative from the six area groups and 15 individual members.

In his capacity of being on the high-powered think-tank, Al Kamali feels his seniority will be a crucial factor in enhancing the UAE’s chances of hosting a world-class competition in the next couple of years.

“Ideally, we would like to host the IAAF/BTC World Relay within the next couple of years,” Al Kamali told Gulf News on his return to Dubai late on Saturday.

“The main thing is to try and shift the limelight on the region by organising one of the big competitions on the IAAF calendar. The really big ones have already been taken, but we could do well with the World Relay for starters,” he added.

After winning seven of the ten events in Nassau, USA once again underlined their domination of relay events by winning the golden baton for the second year in succession at the IAAF/BTC World Relays held in the Bahamas earlier this year. The golden baton is awarded to the team who accrues the most points, based on the simple scoring system of eight points for a first-place finish, down to one point for finishing eighth.

“Luckily we have a new IAAF president [Seb Coe] who looks favourably on the Gulf region and this should work to our advantage. We have a feasibility study prepared and we will be pushing for the hosting of the World Relay in the near future,” Al Kamali said.

Much to his delight, a brand new state-of-the-art athletic track has been laid out at the Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex under instructions from Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman, Dubai Sports Council (DSC). “The venue is never an issue for us. It is now just a question of getting everything right so that we can impress the IAAF and get big athletics coming to the UAE,” he added.

Al Kamali will return to Beijing early on Tuesday to attend the next IAAF Council meeting that has been scheduled for August 30.